Comments on Proposed TANF Outcome Measures

The Human Resources Subcommittee of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee recently released a discussion draft of a TANF reauthorization bill for public comment. Section 7 of this draft includes a set of proposed measures of employment outcomes for TANF leavers. These comments on the performance measures supplement CLASP’s formal testimony for the record on the discussion draft bill. We begin with some overall thoughts on the role of outcome measures in TANF. We then provide specific comments on the measures, goals, data sources, timing, and sanctions for failure.